Ruby Cookbook

ruby-talk
41

I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
complex technical books. If you'd like to see what it's capable of,
pick up a copy of Unicode Explained
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unicode\) or the forthcoming PHP
Cookbook 2e (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/phpckbk2\) or Rails Cookbook
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsckbk/\) [the paper, _not_ the Rough
Cut version], all of which were/will be produced from XSL-FO and look
quite good.

For those interested in (a lot) more, see:
http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html\.

PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
as the others have said.

HTH,
Keith

···

On Saturday 05 August 2006 9:23 pm, Dave Thomas wrote:

> It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
> solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
> that's different, but even less people know this.)

Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
serious, serious hack... :slight_smile:

One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.

42

He seems to be meeting a demand for a service needed by the community,

I can't tell honestly. Sounds more like a mountain getaway that a programming conference, but if people like that I'm glad it is an option for them.

I see no big disservice being done to anyone by the conference name having upper case.

I feel advertisements involving Ruby should spell the language name correctly and with proper case. We don't want to confuse users attending this conference or even just reading advertisements about the event.

Clearly the conference organizer disagrees with me. Fine. I've said my peace on the issue twice now and I know what I need to know about the event.

Now, we just need to make sure new users lurking in this thread are aware of the issue. Hopefully these posts have done that.

James Edward Gray II

···

On Aug 6, 2006, at 2:21 PM, Robert Evans wrote:

43

Robert Evans wrote:

Is it to prevent some sort of brand dilution for Ruby?

No. I believe the intention is to prevent nubies from looking dopey when asking questions or discussing the language. Referring to the language as "RUBY" suggests that the speaker knows very, very little about Ruby.

And that's fine; we all started from pretty much the same place. But I'd be skeptical of a conference organized by someone who may know next to nothing about the conference topic, and very skeptical of a Ruby conference run by someone who may not be all that interested in listening to more experienced Rubyists.

Bottom line, "RUBY" is simply wrong. It is not one of many name variations. It is not a matter of preference. It is wrong.

···

--
James Britt

"I can see them saying something like 'OMG Three Wizards Awesome'"
   - billinboston, on reddit.com

44

Oh

···

On Aug 6, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Christian Neukirchen wrote:

Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
serious, serious hack... :slight_smile:

I consider FO an output format here, of course you need a toolchain to
generate it.

45

Keith Fahlgren <keith@oreilly.com> writes:

> It's probably "just too much work". And I don't know of a CSS
> solution that does really high-quality typesetting. (With XSL-FO,
> that's different, but even less people know this.)

Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
serious, serious hack... :slight_smile:

One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.

I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
complex technical books. If you'd like to see what it's capable of,
pick up a copy of Unicode Explained
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/unicode\) or the forthcoming PHP
Cookbook 2e (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/phpckbk2\) or Rails Cookbook
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsckbk/\) [the paper, _not_ the Rough
Cut version], all of which were/will be produced from XSL-FO and look
quite good.

Do you know which FO formatter they use?

For those interested in (a lot) more, see:
http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html\.

PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
as the others have said.

Is there a CSS to FO translator?

···

On Saturday 05 August 2006 9:23 pm, Dave Thomas wrote:

HTH,
Keith

--
Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com> http://chneukirchen.org

46

In a sentence, that may hold, but in a title or a banner it is common to
have all letters capitalized.
A quick search on the net I found:

python
Python
PYTHON
php
PHP
Perl
PERL
perl

most of which I think are were used correctly.

I used to work for a company that mandated all caps be used on all
presentations. Hence, when I taught a Ruby course, I ignored the rule, but
when presenting to upper management, I SPELLED RUBY IN ALL CAPS, BUT SO WAS
ALL THE OTHER TEXT.

Calling Ruby RUBY can be annoying, but if in a title that is all caps, it is
ok. If Ruby (tm) is really serious about the name, a standard will be
presented showing fonts, sizes, colors, shades of gray, etc that are
acceptable forms of the Ruby name.

Seems to me RUBY ROUCS was being used in a title. And BTW, did anyone catch
the ending date of the conference? The whole thing appears to be someone
having some fun. Let them have their fun.

Besides, I thought we were programmers, not trademark layers.

···

On 8/6/06, James Britt <james.britt@gmail.com> wrote:

Robert Evans wrote:

> Is it to prevent some sort of brand dilution for Ruby?

No. I believe the intention is to prevent nubies from looking dopey
when asking questions or discussing the language. Referring to the
language as "RUBY" suggests that the speaker knows very, very little
about Ruby.

--
Jim Freeze

47

>> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
>> serious, serious hack... :slight_smile:
>>
>> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
>
> I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
> complex technical books.

Do you know which FO formatter they use?

We use AntennaHouse. It's commerical, but all of the others don't
implement enough of the FO spec(s) to really give you all of the tools
at your disposal.

> PS: CSS, on the other hand, is not ready for high-quality typesetting,
> as the others have said.

Is there a CSS to FO translator?

Not that I know of, but part of it shouldn't be entirely impossible. The
more tricky and page-based stuff obviously wouldn't be covered.

HTH,
Keith

···

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006, Christian Neukirchen wrote:

48

To all Ruby afficianados

RUBY ROUC is not a joke It is not affiliated with Ruby either.
I will thank anyone who bothers to check the evidence before issuing
theories about an independent conference.
I love to make things humorous which is why the conference continues for those
who have the fortitude ( i hope the number is zero ) to meditate on ruby until Dec 31.

You have permission to spell my name AGSC agsc Augustus gustavious salvatore Calabrese
gus Gus or you can call me Sam although I probably won't know who you are talking to.

Check out my resume at
http://omegadogs.com/resume/gsc_resume.htm

Note that the registration has a money back guarantee.
Why would anyone trust me to not take the money and run ?
Living in Colorado for 55 years years demonstrates my basic non-running nature.
I will ponder further on how to reassure those Gray IIs and Britts

Sundance and Slamdance are still my best example of something similar.


( except I am not competing with the Ruby conference, I am offering additional possibilities )

AGSC

49

I've been using Altsoft's Xml2PDF. The price is reasonable, it's fast,
and it's easy to run it from the command line.

Yours,

Tom

···

On Tue, 2006-08-08 at 06:49 +0900, Keith Fahlgren wrote:

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006, Christian Neukirchen wrote:
> >> Yeah, but pure FO just doesn't hack the book stuff (and indexing is a
> >> serious, serious hack... :slight_smile:
> >>
> >> One day it'll happen, and we'll try our best to be there.
> >
> > I'll strongly disagree with this. Pure FO is more than ready to handle
> > complex technical books.
>
> Do you know which FO formatter they use?

We use AntennaHouse. It's commerical, but all of the others don't
implement enough of the FO spec(s) to really give you all of the tools
at your disposal.

50

Gus S Calabrese wrote:

To all Ruby afficianados

RUBY ROUC is not a joke It is not affiliated with Ruby either.

If RUBY isn't Ruby, what does it refer to? And why are you posting
about RUBY to a Ruby mailing list?

Hal

51

Gus really likes to hammer I guess:

"Hammering!!!!! (H+)"

···

On 8/6/06, Gus S Calabrese <gsc@omegadogs.com> wrote:

Check out my resume at
http://omegadogs.com/resume/gsc_resume.htm

52

Gus, I understand what you're wanting to do. The way that you've
approached this, however, does have some people wondering about the
ability to follow through. The language is "Ruby," as you've noted, so
the title of the conference should be:

  Ruby for the Rest of Us Conference 2006

which would still leave RUBY ROUC as a semi-valid short name. I don't
fault your enthusiasm, but I think that you underestimate how much
planning goes into a successful conference, and little has been done to
counteract the slapdash feel to this. I don't know what the budget and
planning for the first Slamdance festival was, but I suspect that it was
planned a little more carefully than this appears to be planned so far.

So why don't you calm down, take a breath, and then rewrite the pages
surrounding the ROUC. Stop including unnecessary personal references and
attacks on people who are *extremely well regarded* in the Ruby
community. Attacks on them, when they've been extremely calm in pointing
out that the use of "RUBY" isn't appropriate when referring to the
language will win you no friends.

A conference can be low-budget and still be successful without appearing
slapdash. You may like having the humour, but I would plan a little more
carefully before making the grand announcements that you've made.
Otherwise, your first conference may be your last conference as well,
because people will talk about how well the conference was managed.
Badly managed conferences don't last.

Best of luck to hosting a "Rest of Us..." conference; you might even
want to look at the unconference[1] model for what you're wanting to do.
For that, though, a theatre presentation model definitely won't work. I
almost certainly guarantee that people will want Internet access during
the conference, and that people will want time and space to chat during
sessions that they're not interested in. Are you ready for that?

-austin
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference

···

On 8/6/06, Gus S Calabrese <gsc@omegadogs.com> wrote:

RUBY ROUC is not a joke

--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * http://www.halostatue.ca/
               * austin@halostatue.ca * You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. // halo • statue
               * austin@zieglers.ca

53

For those who want to make a presentation about Ruby in 2006
For presenters who want to have their presentation seen by more Ruby afficianados
For Ruby civilians who want to come out to Denver and kick tires with other Rubyists.
For anyone who is bummed that the 2006 Ruby conference is completely filled ......

go to the RUBY ROUC URL
http://nope9.com/projects-axxx/tiki-index.php?page=A326

questions, comments, snipes, offers of help, presenters, can contact me at
ruby.for.the.rest@oh-god.com or rubyfortherest@oh-god.com

I will definitely make changes based on the interests of attendees

Registration is $75.

Gus S Calabrese
Denver, CO
720 222 1309 303 908 7716 cell
Please include and do not limit yourself to "spam2006". I allow everything with "spam2006" in the subject or text to pass my spam filters.